Kemi Badenoch quit her job instead of taking maternity leave

An unauthorized biography of Ms Badenoch, Blue Ambition, by Tory politician Lord Ashcroft, claims that she decided to quit her job at The Spectator when she was pregnant with her second child to avoid compromising her employer to cause inconvenience. She left office in 2016, a year before she was first elected MP for Saffron Walden.

Fraser Nelson, who was the magazine’s editor at the time, said he “really appreciated” the gesture as The Spectator was a small business that would have had difficulty finding someone capable of stepping in for them.

In quotes cited by Lord Ashcroft, he said: “When she found out she was pregnant she told me it would be unfair to ask us to keep her job open while she was on maternity leave.” So she decided not to, to have her child.

“She would have had the right not to do that. As an employer, I really appreciated this. We are a small company. It would have been difficult for us to find someone to fill her position as Deputy Head of Digital during her maternity leave.

“Media is so fast-moving that technology leadership is important and there is a year to lose. But thanks to the way she handled it, we didn’t waste any time at all. It was an unusual thing. She did it out of loyalty to the magazine and, moreover, decency, I think.”

Maternity benefit regulations go “too far”

Speaking to Times Radio on Sunday, Ms Badenoch said maternity pay rules had “gone too far” and would burden companies with too much red tape.

Asked whether the benefit was set at the right level, she said: “Maternity pay varies depending on who you work for, but it is a function – where it is statutory maternity pay – a function of tax.”

“Taxes come from the people who work. We take from one group of people and give to another. I think that’s an exaggeration.”

Statutory maternity pay is granted for up to 39 weeks. In the first six weeks it amounts to 90 percent of the average weekly earnings before taxes. For the next 33 weeks, new mothers will receive a maximum of £184.03 – one of the lowest statutory maternity contributions in the western world.

Asked if she thought it was overkill, Ms Badenoch said: “I think it goes too far in the other direction in terms of general business regulation.

“We need to enable businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of their own decisions.

“In my opinion, the exact amount of maternity benefit is neither here nor there. We need to make sure we create an environment where people can work and where they have more freedom to make their individual decisions.”